Even Some Rfk Jr. Allies Are Worried About His Vaccine Agenda

Top advisers to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are battling over how aggressively to target vaccines during his first days as the nation’s health secretary, amid fears of a political backlash that could quickly swamp his agenda and derail his relationship with President Donald Trump.

The internal debate has pitted Kennedy’s closest and most strident anti-vaccine allies against a separate faction of advisers and Trump officials, slowing efforts to finalize his policy plans, according to five people with knowledge of the deliberations who were granted anonymity because the discussions are private.

“The people he really trusts are people that obviously are trying to execute a plan to totally take away vaccines,” said one of the people with knowledge of the discussions. “The risk of overreach, I don’t think is zero.”

Within Kennedy’s orbit, there’s little question that he will alter the federal government’s posture toward vaccines — a shift public health experts warn will undermine Americans’ confidence in the shots and open the door to a resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases. Before Trump named him to lead the government’s health agencies, Kennedy chaired a group that questioned the safety of widely accepted vaccines.

Some of Kennedy’s fellow anti-vaccine activists have advocated taking immediate and concrete steps likely to undercut immunizations. That has worried other Kennedy allies and Trump officials who have urged a more measured approach centered on encouraging greater study of vaccines and their potential side effects.

Kennedy has yet to decide the scope of his agenda, prompting competing efforts to shape the ambitions he will take into the Department of Health and Human Services. The jockeying underscores the sensitivity of the vaccine issue even within Kennedy’s camp, especially as he attempts to allay lingering concerns about his past anti-vaccine activism and win Senate confirmation.

A spokesperson for Kennedy did not respond to requests for comment.

The more far-reaching options that Kennedy has discussed with allies include disbanding the main panel of experts that advises the government on vaccines, evaluates their safety and recommends which vaccines should be routinely administered to children and adults. Its decisions can also affect whether public and private insurers cover the shots' costs for patients.

The HHS secretary wields broad power to alter the mission of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and appoint its members. That means Kennedy could overhaul the panel and stock it with allies who will take a far more skeptical view of the new vaccines that come before them.

Those new members could also upend ACIP’s existing recommendations by recategorizing some standard childhood vaccines as meant for “shared clinical decisionmaking” — or shots that should be given only after consultation between a parent and a doctor, rather than as part of a regular slate of immunizations.

“You can have ACIP questioning certain vaccines and casting doubt in the public’s mind about them,” said Larry Gostin, director of Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, who said that doing so may prompt states to reevaluate the vaccinations they require children to receive to attend public schools. “That’s going to particularly affect state policymakers in red states, who will then loosen childhood vaccination laws.”

Some of Kennedy’s anti-vaccine allies have also explored ways to undermine longstanding legal protections for vaccine manufacturers, which they’ve often highlighted to advance theories that vaccines are not as safe as other drugs.

And there is widespread expectation that Kennedy will order major revisions in how the health department talks about vaccines on its website and in other educational materials, though the extent of those changes remain under debate.

“They’re deadly serious,” said another person with knowledge of the deliberations. “He’s going to move on vaccines and I think he feels he has a mandate.”

Aaron Siri, a vaccine injury lawyer who’s petitioned the FDA to revoke approvals or pause distribution of several vaccines, and prominent anti-vaccine activist Del Bigtree are among the close Kennedy associates advising him as he prepares to join Trump’s Cabinet. The health nominee has also solicited ideas from a range of friends and former colleagues, including others in the anti-vaccine movement.

Neither Siri nor Bigtree responded to requests for comment.

Kennedy has said he wants to revamp the government’s approach to vaccines, and previously spent years sowing doubts about their safety and aiding legal efforts to challenge immunizations and health mandates. In an ethics agreement released Wednesday, Kennedy detailed plans to maintain his financial stake in an ongoing lawsuit against the drugmaker Merck challenging the safety of its HPV vaccine.

But since his nomination, Kennedy has denied that he's anti-vaccine. He's also downplayed his focus on vaccines in private meetings with senators, arguing that he’s concerned only with promoting greater transparency rather than curtailing access to them.

Some more cautious advisers have encouraged him to hew closely to that pledge once at HHS, by pursuing a broader chronic disease agenda that promotes healthier eating and scrutiny of the main drivers of chronic conditions.

That would still involve ramping up the study of vaccines and their side effects — including a link to autism Kennedy has long alleged exists in defiance of scientific consensus. Another potential target for study is the childhood vaccine schedule, which Kennedy and his allies have argued vaccinates kids against too many diseases too quickly.

But those advisers have also stressed that Kennedy’s popularity within the “Make America Healthy Again” movement stems more from his desire to improve Americans’ overall health than his credentials as an influential anti-vaccine activist.

Despite recent declines in routine vaccination rates, polling still shows the vast majority of Americans believe childhood vaccinations are important and support mandating them to attend public schools.

Perhaps just as important, some Kennedy advisers and Trump officials fear that aggressively targeting vaccines would prompt an uproar among some in Congress and the broader electorate, creating a distraction that risks taking attention off of Trump. While they believe that Trump is willing to let his HHS nominee dictate large swathes of the health agenda, they also worry that he could sour quickly on Kennedy if there are any major missteps.

“It will stop when it becomes a headache for people at the White House,” a third person with knowledge of the discussions said of the leeway that Trump has granted Kennedy.

Still, the people with knowledge of the discussions said, there’s little assurance that despite the warnings, Kennedy will spurn the wishes of a community of ardent vaccine skeptics that he sees as a core part of his base.

On the night of Trump’s inauguration, Kennedy was feted at the MAHA Inaugural Ball, held blocks from the White House. It was a celebration organized by MAHA Action, a nonprofit created specifically to support Kennedy and his agenda, and helmed by Bigtree.

“It’s an open story and question how much he’s going to be pushed by his grassroots people to focus on potential areas that might ostracize Trump,” the first person with knowledge of the discussions said. “But it is not bullshit mainstream media reporting to continually ask what the deal here is, given the fact that the people he’s surrounded by come from this world.”